Joe Strong the Boy Fire-Eater eBook

“Well, take your time,” said Joe.
“Only I don’t want to get mixed up with
any of the deadly stuff.”

“Don’t worry. I’m on the watch,”
declared the old performer.

That night, when the time for Joe to prepare for his
acts, including the fire tricks, came, he did not
see Ham in the dressing tent, where the assistant
was usually to be found.

“Have you seen him?” asked Joe of Harry
Loper.

“Yes, about half an hour ago,” was the
answer. “He said he was going in to town.”

“Going in to town—­and so near performing
time?” cried Joe. “I wonder what
for! He ought to be here!”

Joe was worried, and when his signal for going on
came Ham Logan was still missing. Joe Strong
shook his head dubiously. It had been found necessary
to get another man to help with the act.

“I don’t like this,” he murmured.
“I don’t like it for a cent!”

CHAPTER XXII

A SUDDEN WARNING

Only the fact that he had strong nerves and that he
possessed the ability of concentrating his mind on
whatever was uppermost at the time, enabled the young
circus man to get through his various circus acts with
credit at that performance. He began with the
worry over Ham Logan’s disappearance before
him. And he was actually worried—­a
bad state of affairs for one whose ability to please
and deceive critical audiences depends on his snappy
acting, his quickness of hand and mind, and his skill.

But, as has been said, Joe possessed the ability to
concentrate on the most needful matter, and that,
for the time being, was his box trick, his fire-eating,
and his slide on his head down the slanting wire through
the blazing hoops.

Then came the blazing banquet, and this created the
usual furor in the audience. Joe managed to get
through it with credit, though his rather strange
manner was noticed and commented on afterward by the
young people associated with him.

“I wonder what’s bothering the boss?”
asked one of the young fire-eaters of another.
“He nearly made a slip when he was lifting up
that fake fried oyster.”

“Maybe the circus is losing money and he’s
got to cut out this act—­let some of us
go—­can’t pay our salaries,”
was the reply.

“Don’t you believe it!” declared
the other. “The circus is making more money
than it ever did—­more even when the fake
tickets are worked off on it.”

“Well, it’s none of our affair.”

“I wouldn’t like my salary to be cut off.”

“Oh, neither would I.”

“Fake tickets? I hadn’t heard of
them.”

“Oh, yes,” explained the first speaker,
and he went into the details of the affair.

“But there’s surely something worrying
the boss,” commented still another of the young
men, and his associates, including the “pretty
girls,” agreed with him.

And what really was worrying Joe was speculation over
the fate of Ham Logan. Not since Joe had first
taken the old and broken circus actor into his employ
had Ham been away more than a few hours at a time,
and then Joe knew where he was. This time Ham
had left no word, save the uncertain one that he was
going into the city, on the outskirts of which the
circus was at the time showing.